Some Incredible Photo Manipulation: Artist Shows How It's Done

Very often I hate photoshopped images.

A really cool photo manipulation by Erick Johansson.  

It seems like when people excessively use photoshop, they're hiding reality, without doing anything creative visually.

It's as if they're saying,  "Let's make the world prettier, or at least my version of prettier, than it really is.

The exception, of course, is when artists are not trying to create reality. They're creating fantasy based on reality. When they do it well, the results are awesome.

Maybe the best examples I've seen is from photographer Erik Johansson, who was recently featured in a Mashable article. 

Says Mashable:

Can high tension electrical wires be musical?
In photographer Eric Johansson's world, maybe.  

"After sketching out and planning an idea, Johansson collects his material, without the use of stock photography. (he wants to feel as if he's creating everything himself). Then he puts all of the photos together, a process that can range in time required from a few days to several weeks. 

'This part is like a puzzle,' Johansson writes on his website. 'I have all the pieces. I just need to put them together.'"

On his web site, Johansson said he is self-taught in both photography and retouch. He said since he acquired his first digital camtera in 2000, he has enjoyed manipulating photos.

As you can see in the photos on this pag and on Johansson's web site, he takes ordinary situations and makes them extraordinary.

A consrructton site version of tic tac toe?
Too bad this is one of Eric Johanssons photo
 manipulations, and not the real thing. 

A guy on a road who is creating the road as he walks, a musical take on high tension electrical wires, a playful take on tic tac toe at a construction site.

Johansson desribes his works as "surreal ideas realized in a realistic way with a touch of humor maybe."      

It's totally worth going to Johansson's web site and looking through many more examples of his work.

You can buy prints from his web site, too.  If I had the space in the house to buy some of his work, I would. Johansson is totally worth checking out.